Who's The Captain Now?
by effulgentcolors
Summary: Based on this tumblr prompt: Since you asked for prompts: a new villain/curse/portal separates Emma from Killian and returns them both to different parts of the EF. Emma stumbles upon the Jolly Roger and decides to win it back for him. She succeeds and sails it in search of her pirate. A few weeks later, Killian is shocked to rediscover his ship and its new blonde captain.


Liam was so grounded. Grounded until he was 20!

Emma had been all for supporting her kid's magic, even if she had been kinda blown away by the fact that her 3-years-old could levitate stuff better than her. Stuff such as his grandfather.

She groaned, rubbing the bruise on her arm and eyeing her surroundings.

The perks of being the kid of the product of True Love and her own True Love, she guessed. But proud as she was of her son, much as she enjoyed watching him pull the rug from under his father's feet (literally) and make a joke out of the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin (Killian still swears he did not bid his son into turning the Dark One into an actual miniature crocodile), she thought that transporting your parents to another realm in the middle of dinner was going a bit too far.

The good news? Her parents and her brother had been there so Liam wasn't alone. The bad? It had taken the boy 2 weeks to figure out how to magic Gold back (though that may or may not have had something to do with Killian suddenly deciding that his son shouldn't exhaust himself with constant magic lessons).

"Well, this time your son has really-" her words die on her tongue as she turns to face Killian and only finds more trees.

Emma tries to control the terror freezing her insides, tries to remind herself that Liam would never hurt either of them, that she would have felt it if something had happened to Killian. Nothing helps for a while, until she manages to focus, dig deep inside, search and find that yes, yes, he was somewhere in the Enchanted Forest too, she could feel him. She sighs in relief, before clenching her teeth again.

30! He was grounded until he turned 30!

/

'Where the hell are you going, Swan?'

Emma glared at the voice inside her head that sounded infuriatingly like Killian. She didn't know how but she did glare at it while trying to ignore the other voice in her head, the one known as _common sense_, that kept telling her to quit being an idiot, find her husband and try to magic them home before her baby boy turned the whole town into a candy store.

"God, he's going to turn Gold into a green gummy crocodile, isn't he?"

She tried to shake the insane thoughts out of her head, trudging forward with reinforced determination. Snow White and Prince Charming could deal with one magic-wielding toddler. She had been meaning to do this for years now, had been secretly searching for a magic bean for so long she had almost given up hope (expect people in her family never really gave up hope) and she was not wasting this chance. Emma was confident enough in her abilities (bless Killian and his never wavering faith) to admit that she was nowhere near as powerful as her little blue-eyed devil and since she didn't want to have to encourage him to transport mommy to the Enchanted Forest again when they came back, she was just going to have to make the best out of the chance her baby had given her.

The chance to make daddy happy. To return to him a piece of himself that he had given up for her.

/

Finding the Jolly hadn't been nearly as hard as she had imagined. A ship like that, she can imagine Killian smugly pointing out, apparently made quite the impression. She had just had to reach the nearest populated village (she was considering herself lucky for having to walk only half a day), flash a smile or two and explain how much she's like to meet the infamous crew of the Jolly Roger, and she had been told that the ship had left the port of the neighbouring town only a couple of nights ago.

Figuring out where it had left for was a bit trickier and she was starting to feel guiltier by the second, knowing that Killian was probably going insane trying to find her. But she had been told that there were no more ogres around and no wars were being waged right now so she was more than convinced that he could handle himself and hoped he could show her the same courtesy.

/

A ball, of course. The coronation of Somebody from Somewhere. Emma really couldn't care less. The important thing was that when the Jolly docked and its crew made for the castle, she was already on shore, waiting for them. And the two measly pirates they left guard stood no chance against a very determined princess.

Determined or not though she was grateful to have almost the whole night to get the ship back on the water because _holy shit_, captaining her was not an easy task. If there was any respect her husband hadn't earned already, he would have that night.

Emma ended up cheating and basically magicing the Jolly into captaining herself. Either she was that good or the enchanted wood the vessel was made of was greatly assisting her. She knew Killian would go with the first option. Her own romantic side, which all three of her boys had teased out embarrassingly fast, thought it was because the Jolly knew she was stirring her towards her captain.

/

"Bloody Hell, Swan! Do you have any idea how- I've been searchin-"

3, 2, 1

"Is that… Is that the _Jolly Roger_?!"

There it is.

"It's Jones now," she says matter-of-factly, instinctively, before looking over her shoulder to where the ship is docked a few feet away. "And, yes, I believe it is unless I stole a fake or something, which would be really embarrassing now that I think about it."

"You… You _stole _her?!" Killian seems unable to tear his gaze away from the ship and the sheer wonder on his face, the light in his eyes, lets her know that this is the greatest thing she has given him since Liam.

And her heart, she knows the idiot would add, if he was privy to her thoughts.

"Well, you did say I had a little pirate in me," she smirks at him, hips twisting from side to side with a teasing self-satisfied sway.

"That's a whole lot of pirate, love," he replies, voice thick with awe and she swears she grows taller with pride because yeah, she did good.

"Care to take her out on the sea, sailor?"

He nods wordlessly before focusing on her.

"First," he whispers before stepping forward and tugging her into his arms, squeezing her so tight that she could feel every hour of worry he had gone through.

"Sorry I didn't come to find you first but… I wanted to find her," she says, nuzzling her face into his neck, nudging his shirt away, leaving an open-mouthed kiss against his collarbone.

"We could have gone together," he says but there's no reproach in his voice and next he pulls back to look her in the eyes. "I love you."

God, she is never gonna get tired of hearing this. Ever. It makes her heart do that pathetic soaring thing, where it's so full and yet so light, like she has the whole world in her hands and it doesn't weigh one bit.

"Love you too, pirate."

"Thank you," he says next and it's so deep, like his voice is coming straight from his soul and fuck, his eyes, his gorgeous blue eyes that wave their own spell over her every time they find hers are outshining the very sun above them.

"I would have done it sooner," she admits. "I've been looking for a bean ever since-"

But he cuts her off with his lips – warm and insistent and she is _home_. All she needs now is Henry and Liam in her arms and she could never ask for more.

"Thank you," he murmurs again against her forehead, lips brushing her skin, and she feels it the moment his eyes focus on his ship again, a slight tremble of anticipation going through his whole body.

"Come on, I'm afraid there's a duel waiting for you. You do have to win her back from her current captain after all," smirks Emma, pulling away from her husband and lifting a challenging brow as she walks backwards towards her ship.

He finally takes in all of her and his eyes darken with unrestrained desire. She's wearing the jeans she had arrived with but in them is loosely tucked one of his own black shirts, enough buttons undone to give him an idea of what lies underneath (you'd think he hadn't seen it all before the way he is drinking her in, tongue flicking out over his lips), her nipples are hard thanks to the chilling breeze and his burning gaze and the thin cotton, with no bra underneath it (what? It had gotten filthy!), does nothing to hide them from her husband.

"Is that so?" shoots back Killian, a predatory glint entering his eyes and that grin that she knows means she would soon be sprawled against the nearest hard surface (on pressed against it). "And what kind of a dual does Captain Swan have in mind?"

"One that she's convinced you'd approve of. You see, she has been traversing the woods and sailing the sea, pirating and all that, all alone for a few days now and she has been feeling slightly… how should I put it… tense."

Killian makes a 'tsking sound of disapproval, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

"A real travesty that. A tense captain is never a good thing."

"No, I should think not."

"Would the captain allow me to try my… hand at rectifying that injustice?"

"Why, I don't know. She_ is_ a married woman," grinned Emma, dropping effortlessly on board the ship they had reached while teasing each other.

There's a reverent look on Killian's face as he boards his ship, hand skimming gently over the wood, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes in blissful disbelief. It's a homecoming alright and Emma watches it with a growing sense of accomplishment. The way his lips twitch upwards and he gives a slight nod as if listening to his ship welcome him back, the way he turns his head to meet the wind. It makes her fall just that little bit more in love with him and she sure as hell didn't think that was possible. She moves closer, wrapping her arms around him from behind and swaying gently in place.

Later Lieutenant Jones teaches her how to navigate the stars, Captain Hook shows her every secret nook and cranny on the ship and her husband makes sure to relieve all her tension.

/

She has a whole lecture prepared, she swears she does, but as she feels her older son's arms wrap tightly around her (he has been treating hugs like the plague ever since he entered puberty) and watches her baby boy run into his father's arms, crying 'Daddy!' and 'Mommy!' and 'Sooo soooorry!', she just cannot bring herself to scold him. She just can't. Not yet anyway. Not when Killian is kissing his blonde little head all over. Not when Liam tugs at her hair and buried his head in her neck. Not when she looks into his misty baby blues. Not when Snow tells her how guilty he had felt and how much he had cried and exhausted himself, trying to force his magic to bring them back for hours on end.

"It's okay, baby," she finds herself whispering into his neck instead as she squeezes him to her, sharing a conspiratory look with Killian before she pulls back and grins at her son. "We brought you something with the Enchanted Forest. Something you helped us bring back into the family."

/

They never settle the debate of who is the captain of the Jolly Roger.

Killian scoffs at her claims that he never did earn it back ("I did, love, four times."), Liam demands that he was the one that send them to the Jolly ("And I can magically sail it, mommy!"), Henry insists that he is the oldest and thus should be the one stirring the vessel ("Dad's been teaching me to navigate for _years_!), and she… well, she just really likes the ring Captain Swan has to it.


End file.
